Every so often we like to take a broad look at all the various browsers customers are using to visit jewelry websites. Since the jWAG team also manages a web server farm of hundreds of jewelry websites, it's easy to run a general report and see what's happening.

The last time we checked up on web browser usage was September 12, 2011. Here's our finding from back then.

The percentage shown represents the customer usage of that web browser.

Internet Explorer continues to lose popularity, but not because Firefox and Chrome are increasing in popularity. In fact, both Firefox and Chrome have lost popularity to Safari.

It's quite surprising to see Safari a full 9 points in our measurements considering Apple is reporting flat sales of their MacBook computers. What this really shows is the huge growth of the iPad and iPhone 4S. We dug a bit deeper to see what was happening.

The iPhone accounted for 4.2% of user traffic and the iPad accounted for 9.9% of traffic. Together these two devices increased a combined total of 9% over the last 5 months.

The Android Browser finally appeared in our tracking data, and it made a big leap to 5.8% of user visits.

The BlackBerry9700 browser also appeared in our tracking. At 0.1% it almost too small to report, but we at least wanted to give it honorable mention so you don't think we've forgotten (even if most users have).

What's going to happen another 5 months from now?

We agree with other industry experts that 2012 is the year when mobile technology will finally catch on in a big way. The Safari and Android numbers certainly point in that direction.

We've also compiled other statistics and even a list of the website pages that Safari and Android users are viewing, but you have to wait until tomorrow's Nugget to find them out.

In the mean time you shouldn't wait. Call your web developer and create a mobile website for your jewelry store.

"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away."-Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT

"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated."-Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry